Expect Resistance

As I make my way through the Old Testament, I read Nehemiah and what I took from it this time is that change encounters resistance. I was reminded of this when I opened our money series on the first Sunday in March and invited Hillcresters to consider ‘the tithing challenge’ where they would tithe for the next six weeks. In almost the same breath, though, I said that a tithe is one of the most difficult steps one takes in their faith journeys and that if we do take the step, we can sure bet that something will happen in our financial life to make us wish we hadn’t taken that step! Sure enough, the following Sunday after the challenge I heard a story from someone of a financial situation that happened literally two days after taking the challenge! Talk about resistance!

As Nehemiah sets out to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, he’s met with several challenges and people who flat out resist him and his efforts. The resistance is so strong in fact that he and his team have to divide their labor between the actual work of rebuilding the wall and taking turns on ‘night patrol’. Now that's resistance! I think anytime we deisre to make changes in our life, we ought to expect resistance. The cool thing, though, is that when push through the resistance, we've got experience, so that when we set out to make another change, we'll expect the resistance, and be able to use our previous experience to push us through.